APSAD paper
Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and other Drugs
Miscommunication about the causes of the US outbreak of lung diseases in vapers by public health authorities and the media
Harm reduction is a public health approach to reducing the consequences of risky behaviours like drug use. Nicotine does not cause disease, it’s the other 7000+ chemicals made when chemically leaden cigarettes are burned. Vaping reduces the harm by 95%.
Epidemic: A widespread disease that affects many people. Smoking kills 17,000 people EVERY DAY! These deaths are 100% preventable. A safer source of nicotine means millions of lives saved, not to mention the quality of life for these people improves.
Over decades, scientists were paid millions of dollars ? to add different chemicals to tobacco & make them more addictive. Many of the chemicals in cigarettes enhance the effects and delivery of nicotine. Some chemicals are addictive in themselves.
Before vaping, about half of smokers tried to quit every year but only 2.5% of smokers quit long term in a year. Despite the cost, health consequences and social shaming, most smokers are destined to the eventual smoking-related diseases.
People start smoking in their teens because youth experiment with adult taboos due to peer pressure and “sensation seeking”. ? Also, because the brain ? is still developing; it is building new connections making them more vulnerable to addiction.
100% of smoking-related diseases are preventable! “The harm from tobacco is overwhelmingly due to its combustion … E-cigarette vapour, in contrast, does not include any combustible by-products,” – Action on Smoking and Health
It takes years of smoking before the diseases take a hold of the smoker. These adults often have families & can no longer provide for them as their health deteriorates. Smoking-related diseases effect the whole family as it destroys the smoker’s health.
Over one million Canadians suffer with smoking-related diseases. Cigarette smoke contains 1500 known disease causing toxins & 69 carcinogens. If smokers switch to tobacco harm reduction, they reduce the toxins & their risk for smoking-related diseases.
Smoking kills 2 out of 3 smokers when used as intended. Smoking-related diseases slowly deprive the smoker of quality of life such as being able to play with their grandchild or have the retirement they planned for. They have a right to all the options.
“If you are a smoker, vaping is a less harmful option than smoking.” Health Canada. Normal vaping (nicotine) is 5% the risk of smoking and the government limits what can be put into the eliquids to keep it that way.
Citizens have a right to life which means they have a right to all the information to make informed decisions about preserving health. They also should have access to and be able to effectively utilize harm reduction to protect health such as condoms.
Over 7000 harmful chemicals are produced when the chemically laden cigarette is burned including: carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, hydrocarbons, nitrous oxide, free radicals, radioactive compounds, arsenic, phenols & 69 carcinogens These aren’t found in vapour.
“People smoke for nicotine but they die from tar.” -M. Russell WHO prioritized the 9 most toxic chemicals found in tobacco smoke for reduction. Vaping significantly reduces or eliminates these toxic chemicals! As to formaldehyde, it is naturally occurring in exhaled breath.
Most of us are familiar with and support harm reduction such as seat belts or bike helmets. Smoking is the most preventable cause of disease and death in North America! It’s hard to quit smoking, so maybe harm reduction is the answer. ?
The standard scientific tool for measuring the harm from drug use is the MCDA (multi-criteria decision analysis). Experts compared 12 different sources of nicotine using the MCDA. The most harmful source were cigarettes so they were given the value of 100%. The other 11 sources show the relative risk of harm compared to smoking.
Unlike decades ago when smoking was recommended by physicians, we have advanced technology & are able to analyze gases, liquids and solids. Vapour was found to have minute amounts of heavy metals just like the nicotine inhalers recommended by physicians.
Scientific evidence is universal, so why does Britain promote vaping and Canada and the USA have a war on harm reduction? The British health agencies got to the science before the narrative got to them. They even have vape shops in their hospitals!
Workers in a ?popcorn butter flavouring factory, (diacetyl was a main ingredient) had higher cases of “popcorn lung”. A study found diacetyl in some eliquids, The amount was 750x less than found cigarettes. Headlines read: “Vaping Causes Popcorn Lung!”
Remember all of the headlines saying that vaping causes popcorn lung? ? It was a lie. Do you feel deceived? Makes you wonder what they are lying about now…
Controlled clinical trials are the gold standard of science. A group of smokers who didn’t want to quit were given simple vapes. The one’s today are even more effective. 21% of the smokers quit smoking; compare that to 6% success with patches.
The ritual: bringing the smoke to the mouth; tasting the drag; sensations in the throat & lungs on a big inhale; a visible exhale & a nicotine hit to the brain. A pack-a-day smoker does this 87,600 times a year. Vaping uniquely satisfies that ritual.
Nicotine replacement therapy is safe, because nicotine is has very few side effects. Smokers are experts at self dosing nicotine through inhalation. Eliquid is nicotine in a rather benign base & allows the smoker to continue the same routine to switch.
Vaping satisfies the nicotine addiction & smoking behaviour PLUS vaping offers thousands of flavours to help the smoker replace the taste of smoke with something better. That is why it is more effective than sticking a patch to your arm or chewing gum.
It’s possible for smokers to quit nicotine altogether with vaping! After dual use for a while most vapers toss the smokes. Unlike cigarettes, those that switch to vaping completely naturally lower their nicotine strengths, some all the way down to zero.
The anti-harm reduction advocates say that vaping is ineffective for quitting smoking because many dual use for a while. Dual users significantly reduce the toxins they inhale because of the 60-80% drop in how many cigarettes they smoke. Harm REDUCTION!
1% of people that never smoked vape. 15% of smokers and 13% of ex-smokers vape. The data illustrates that SMOKERS are vaping to either quit smoking or stay quit. ? The focus ? needs to switch to harm reduction and away from the 1%.
This survey included youth as well as adults. You can clearly see that the MAIN reason for vaping is smokers seeking to quit. Flavours are not the main reason but vaping wouldn’t work if it didn’t offer smokers a more pleasurable and novel experience than smoking.
Like any substance, too much can cause adverse effects. For instance 4000mg of Tylenol can cause kidney and liver damage. But drugs that can be used safely by the public, called over-the-counter (OTC) medication, are available without a prescription such as nicotine.
Nicotine is a mild stimulant and addictive, much like caffeine. It’s only when nicotine is abused such as teens seeking a ‘heady’ that it becomes a problem. Nicotine in eliquid helps smokers transition to a source of nicotine that doesn’t kill them.
It’s the smoke that kills people, not the nicotine. Vaping has no smoke. Dr. John Britton of the U.K. Center for Tobacco and Alcohol Studies explains that nicotine addiction isn’t a big deal because “…nicotine itself isn’t particularly hazardous.”
Science doesn’t change because of political borders! The effects of cigarette smoke are the same for humans everywhere in the world. It makes them sick then die slow painful deaths. Nicotine eliquid is a harm reduction for smokers anywhere in the world.
The Royal College of Physicians reviewed the science on vaping. In April 2016, they released the report, Nicotine without Smoke: “…the likely harm to health and society of e-cigarettes at about 5% of the burden caused by tobacco smoking.”
We don’t know the long-term effects of vaping but we do know the long-term effects of smoking. Vaping has been mainstream for about 5-10 years without serious adverse effects. Millions of smokers have switched to vaping and reported improved health.
Smoking has over 7000 chemicals; 1500 of them we know cause diseases and 69 cause cancer. Vapour has very few constituents and all of the disease/cancer causing chemicals are virtually eliminated. This is why vaping is a fraction the risk of smoking.
Smoking causes adverse health consequences. The good news is that when you stop smoking, the toxic chemicals are no longer entering the body. This means health will improve with quitting smoking. Vaping significantly lowers these toxins.
Smoking is a risk factor for many chronic diseases because of the harmful chemicals in cigarette smoke. Switching to vaping virtually eliminates these harmful chemicals & chronic diseases improve for many. Which means they needed less pharmaceuticals.
When asthmatic smokers switched to vaping: Spirometry data, airway hype-responsiveness, exacerbations and subjective signs & symptoms ALL showed improvements. Of the 8 that were still smoking, their dual mean went from of 22 cigarettes a day to 2.
The majority of vapers reported a decrease in lung infection rates after they switched to vaping. According to the study, increased rates were due to lifestyle changes such as having children and the resulting exposure to more infectious illnesses.
Anyone who suggests that vaping is not safer than smoking does NOT know what they are talking about! Whoever it is, your physician, a nurse or a representative from a health-related nonprofit, question EVERYTHING they say after that… And send them to VAEPworld.com
The risk of vaping versus smoking is 5% but how many people actually know that? ? Looking at this graph, it suggests that those that are better informed about vaping are choosing harm reduction. 34% of smokers & 62% of vapers are correct!